“Don’t say anything,” said Philips, making his way through the debris to his desk. “My life is disintegrating and smart comments are not going to help.” He picked up the messages Helen had left. As he had expected, there were calls marked important from Goldblatt and Drake. After staring at them for a minute, he allowed the two pieces of paper to waft in a gentle spiral into his large institutional wastebasket.
Then he turned on the computer and fed in Kristin’s skull film.
“Well! How’s it going?” said Michaels, appearing at the doorway. He could tell from the litter that little had changed since the morning visit.
“Depends on what you’re referring to,” said Philips. “If you mean the program, the answer is fine. I’ve only run a few films, but so far it is performing with an accuracy of about a hundred-ten percent.”
“Wonderful,” said Michaels, clapping his hands.
“It’s more than wonderful,” said Philips. “It’s fantastic! It’s the only thing around here that has been going right. I’m just sorry I haven’t had more time to work on it. Unfortunately, I’m behind on my regular work. But I’m going to stay here for a while tonight and run as many films as I can.” Philips saw Denise turn and look at him. He tried to read her expression but the noisy clatter of the typewriter rapidly spewing out the report captured his attention. Michaels saw what was happening and he came up behind Philips to look over his shoulder. From Denise’s perspective, the two of them looked like proud parents.
“It’s reading a skull film I just took on a young woman,” Martin said. “Her name is Kristin Lindquist. I thought maybe she’d have the same abnormality as those other patients I described to you. But she doesn’t.”
“Why are you so committed to this one abnormality?” asked Michaels. “Personally, I’d rather see you spending your time on the program itself. There will be time for this kind of investigative fun later.”
“You don’t know doctors,” said Martin. “When we release this little computer on the unsuspecting medical community it’s going to be like confronting the Medieval Catholic Church with Copernican astronomy. If we could present a new radiological sign that the program had discovered, it would make acceptance much easier.”
When the print-out typewriter paused, Philips tore off the report. His eyes scanned the sheet rapidly, then riveted on one central paragraph. “I don’t believe it.” Martin grabbed the film and put it back up on his viewer.
With his hands blocking out most of the X ray, Philips isolated a small area at the back of the skull. “There it is! My God! I knew the patient had the same symptoms. The program remembered the other cases and was able to find this very small example of the same abnormality.”
“And we thought it was subtle on the other films,” said Denise looking over Philips’ shoulder. “This just involves the tip of the occipital pole, not the parietal or temporal region.”
“Maybe it’s just earlier in the progress of the disease,” suggested Philips.
“What disease?” asked Michaels.
“We don’t know for certain,” said Martin, “but several of the patients who showed this same density abnormality were suspected of multiple sclerosis. It’s a shot in the dark.”
“I don’t see a thing,” admitted Michaels. He put his face very close to the X ray, but it was no use.
“It’s a textural quality,” said Martin. “You have to be aware of what the normal texture is before you can appreciate the difference. Believe me, it’s there. The program is not making it up. Tomorrow I’ll get the patient back and cone down right over the area. Maybe with some better films you’ll be able to see it.”
Michaels admitted that his appreciation of the abnormality was not critical. After turning down an offer of dinner in the hospital cafeteria, Michaels excused himself. At the door he again begged Martin to spend more time running old films through the computer, saying there was a good chance the program would pick up all sorts of new radiologic signs, and if Philips took time to follow up each one, the program would never get debugged. With a final wave, Michaels departed.